Good Books

Just a quick message to let you know about a couple of books I have been reading recently. I was inspired after meeting Bill Knowles from the Vermont clinic (http://isporttraining.com) who talked about the value of exercise technique being perfect every time in order to lay down myelin along our nerve pathways. Basically, myelin is an insulator that allows neurons (nerves) to fire more efficiently and with better timing, causing signals to be sent either faster or slower depending on what effect is needed. Myelin is grown or layed down through focused effort or i other words, deep practice. This is the feeling you get when you’re totally focused on something and trying to figure it out by problem solving and working it through.

Bill said his inspiration for this practice came after reading The Talent Code by Daniel Coyle which talks about talent being created through deep practice and not simply genetics. Daniel talks about visiting all of the best talent centres around the world which create elite athletes and also truly great artists, pianists etc. What he found was that all of these people had one thing in common, they worked really really hard, even when they didn't think they were. They also had a great ability to problem solve themselves, therefore going through deep practice.

This practice is all about breaking skills into pieces which are more easily done. From a musical point of view this may be by way of slowing down a piece of music to learn it. Once this is mastered we must then repeat it over and over again. Next we must learn to feel the movement or skill or tune or whatever the case may be and this is often mastered when we can recall how it feels to fail at this skill.

More to the point for S&C coaches was the section of the book that talks about master coaching and this highlights the importance of correct cueing and also details the fact that this in itself is a skill and thus takes time to master. Coyle gives some excellent examples of coaches who do this and i found it very insightful.

I would highly recommend this book and it inspired me to then read Talent is Overrated by Geoff Colvin which is along the same lines and again an excellent read.

Apologies for the lack of content recently, I have been busy busy recently but more to come in the coming weeks. I have got Bill coming over to present in February also so hopefully he will give me even more insightful thoughts from his incredibly inventive brain.